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Monitoring the Future survey finds that alcohol and cigarette use among
teens is at its lowest point in 30 years, but the availability of
medical marijuana seems to be boosting pot use.

Fewer
teens drink and smoke cigarettes than in any time in the last 30 years,
but the widespread availability of medical marijuana appears to be
fueling a rise in pot use, health experts said Wednesday. One in
four of the 47,000 teens surveyed for the 2011 Monitoring the Future
report said they had used marijuana during the last year, up from 21.4%
in 2007. The survey, which polled students nationwide in the eighth,
10th and 12th grades, also found that 1 in 15 of the oldest students
used pot on a daily or near-daily basis — the highest rate since 1981.

For the first time, researchers asked 12th-grade students about
synthetic marijuana, which contains cannabinoids and produces a high
similar to pot but is thought to be more dangerous because it can be
contaminated with unknown substances. The finding — 11% of the high
school seniors surveyed had tried the substance — surprised researchers.
Sold by the names Spice or K2, the drug had been widely available
online and in tobacco shops until recently. In February, the Drug
Enforcement Administration reclassified some of the chemicals found in
the products as Schedule I controlled substances, which made them
illegal. The survey also revealed that teens don't think of
marijuana as dangerous. Because of that, "we can predict that use of
marijuana is going to increase," said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the
National Institute on Drug Abuse, which funds the annual study.
That pot has become more widely used as more states legalize the use of
medical marijuana cannot be ignored, said R. Gil Kerlikowske, director
of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. "We know that any substance that is legally available is more widely used," he said.
The rise of marijuana use is largely responsible for an overall
increase in youth drug use over the last four years, said study leader
Lloyd Johnston of the University of Michigan's Institute for Social
Research, which conducts the annual survey. When marijuana is taken out
of the equation, the proportion of teens reporting they had used any
illicit drug declined through the first half of the 2000s and has been
stable over the last three years. Since 1991, the proportion of
eighth-grade students who said they had used alcohol within the last 30
days has declined by half, to 13%, the survey found. Rates have also
fallen among older students, with binge-drinking among seniors dropping
from 41% in 1981 to 22% this year. Still, about 40% of high school
seniors said they had used alcohol within the last 30 days.
Cigarette use fell in all three age groups, which was reassuring since
the 2010 survey hinted that the decades-long decline in smoking may have
begun to reverse, Johnston said. In all three grades combined, 11.7% of
youths said they had smoked within the last 30 days, down from 12.8% in
the 2010 survey.